Hello.

So I had my regular plumber install a Bradford White Defender gas water last fall. No issues until now, about 9 months later, I hear it whistling fairly loudly. After careful inspection / careful listening the whistling is clearly coming from the base of the tank. I then set the gas valve dial to OFF and also shut off the gas manually on the incoming gas line. Fast forward a couple of hours where the tank has cooled down, and the whistling is still there, as constant and as loud as when I first spotted it.

Some more data:
1.) No backflow preventer is installed
2.) I'm on city water
3.) I live in an old house in a shore town and it's packed with visitors for the July 4th weekend (could the city have cranked up the water pressure in anticipation of the visitors? Still it seems an unlikely contributor to the problem)

Any thoughts?

Thanks everyone.

right where the atmospheric vent connects to the heater there is a draft hood.
with the gas off and the heater cooled down a little, block the opening so there is no natural draft.
all i can think of is the draft is strong and causing the noise?

Thanks for the response Packy!

The reason why I think we were stumped is because, almost embarrassingly, the source of the whistling (which in retrospect was more of an electronic hum) was an out of sight portable "watchdog" water alarm in the throes of battery or maybe general electronic demise. Someone in my house who needed access must have inadvertently repositioned it so it wasnt exactly visible. And myself, i guess i must have forgotten that it was there.

Regardless, thank you very much for your input!



Edited 1 times.

well, whoever the culprit is...
at least they didn't put it up on a shelf somewhere.
it wouldn't go off until the the water was 5 feet high and rising.
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